Rules of Engagement

ROE is a funny thing. it's usually dictated to us by politicians in support of some far fetched and completely unrealistic agenda. but politicians don't wage war, warriors do. i've worked with guys that fought in the middle easterna conflicts that told me stories of utterly asinine rules on how they were supported to fight their battles. fucked up shit, man.

lucky for me, my first combat experience was in Siberia and our government wanted nothing more than to win. fortunately, public opinion at the time supported that attitude. as such, we were given very few restrictions, usually relating to civilians and POWs. if enough of the enemy held a town, we called in fire missions and CAS, leveling every suspect structure before advancing and mopping up. yeah, there was a lot of collateral damage in those days, but nearly 100% of the time, the locals were supporting the enemy, so we never really stressed too much about it.

now with Romeo, we've been given an entirely new ROE. logically, it makes sense, but fuck... it's a real motherfucker to follow.

see, the remaining members of the government want us to 'sanitize' the revenant threat, but they also want a country to govern after the fact. they provide the control, we provide the chaos- so goes an old military adage. what this breaks down into is that we're to refrain from destroying anything vital to overall infrastructure of every manner. we're strongly discouraged from destroying areas vital to economic and residential recovery. so, gone are the days of blowing the fuck out of buildings and carpet bombing entire combat zones.

which, more importantly, limits our available firepower. we can only use the really cool shit on hostiles in the open. and let me tell, i'm pretty motherfucking sure Romeo is figuring that one out.

the upside is that we can expend as much small arms ammunition as we see fit. no one cares about counting rounds anymore. we can shoot the fuck out of whatever we want without restriction. and let me tell you, that's a big fucking plus, haha.

we're also revising a lot of our tactics, but i'll save that for another time.

basically, it's open season on the goddamned Romeos and there's no limit to how many you can bag.

the tricky part of the war now is having to switch gears to deal with armed gangs. we've run into street gangs with AKs that learned about urban combat from video games all the way up to organized militias with discipline and training. it's a fucked up thing, going from dropping zombies one minute and taking fire the next.

sometimes, we'll get them to stand down and relocate into the safe zones. i like those days. those people are fighters, they'll be good to help rebuild the world. sometimes, though, they want to slug it out. and they never come out on top. honestly, i like those days too. getting rid of the types of people that would be problematic later down the line.

it's never a dull fucking moment. as long as you don't think about it all too much.

my apologies for being absent for so long, been shuffled around a lot. i'll have to come back and tell you guys about the escort missions, beach duty and house clearing ops.